Short Circuits
by zero-damage
Summary: Persona 4. Ongoing collection of generally unrelated ficlets, one per chapter.
1. Burdens: Kanji x Naoto

_A/N: This is a collection of small ficlets, some interrelated, some not. Some are older, some are new. Not all take place in the same universe. Expect team fics, pairings, friendships, character studies. Some will be angsty, some fluffy, some humorous (I hope). All T-rated. Basically, I write a fair bit and don't want to spam the front page. __(To those of you who have me on author alert, I apologize, this initial batch will probably trigger multiple emails)_

_The first is some Kanji/Naoto angst. Writing chapters for a longer fic and this popped into my head. It doesn't quite fit the plot for the longer story, so it stands as a one-shot. Spoilers through December.  
_

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**Burdens**

Thursday was their first run inside Magatsu Inaba. They barely made it out.

They broke the one firm rule Souji-senpai set: don't get split up. A group of shadows routed them, him and Naoto ending up on one side with Senpai and Teddie on the other, and they'd had to run. Except it wasn't so much running as limping. It's Sunday now and Kanji swears his ears are still ringing, and the throbbing in his leg still hasn't faded.

Stupid. Naoto's small and fast; she could've dodged the hit. Instead she wound up dragging him through Magatsu Inaba, his right arm draped over her shoulders and Rise guiding them back. Kanji was terrified he'd accidentally put his hand somewhere he shouldn't - which could be anywhere with Naoto - so he kept pulling away. Naoto snapped at him for it, then at Yosuke and Chie when they came to help because they'd left Rise and Yukiko alone. After that Souji and Teddie came barreling round the corner, running away from another shadow, and everyone just scattered again. Kanji remembers Chie yelling at Yosuke a bunch while the two of them practically shoved him back to the entrance.

That was just the first floor.

Could've been worse, though. He wanted to rush in straight after they met Adachi inside that dingy bedroom. He could rationalize it now if he wanted - say he figured it was best to chase the bastard while they had a chance of catching him - but honestly, he was just pissed. Naoto was the one to talk him down.

It's what they do for each other, or at least he likes to think so.

**

* * *

**

Kanji's been coming home on time every night since May, except the obvious ones.

Each time he's back late from Junes and his ma asks where he's been, he tells her he was at sewing club. First time he said it, she gave him this _look_, like she thought he might be in trouble again. Then she covered it with a smile and said she was proud of him.

It's not _that_ bad a lie, because she might still be proud of him if she knew the truth and it beats not coming home at all - or worse, Ma having to pick him up from the cop shop.

He's going to tell her the same thing tonight. She definitely wouldn't like the real reason, which is that he's been standing by the lockers for twenty-five minutes waiting for Naoto to come pick up her shoes. It's foggy and he wants to walk her home, even though she has her glasses and she'd probably just shoot anyone who came after her.

Kanji hasn't actually asked her if he can, of course, but they haven't really talked since Thursday and from what he knows she isn't speaking much with anyone else. She'll come up to him, another twenty minutes later, and ask why he's still at school. "Sewing club," he'll tell her, and fiddle with the catch on his shoe locker until she leaves.

**

* * *

**

He does the same thing the next afternoon, except he stays in the classroom because his leg's aching and he's not going to ask her anyway. But Kanji likes to think he will - hey, he likes to think a lot of things - so he waits around anyway, trying to figure out when half of what he does and says and thinks got tied up in this other person who doesn't really care about him, not in the way he wants.

Sometimes he -- no, there's no way he hates her. There's got to be a better way to describe it and Naoto could probably tell him if he asked. _Yo, Naoto, I can't stand hanging on everything you say, they got a word for that?_

Tangled in his thoughts, he doesn't really notice the footsteps in the corridor. He just hears the classroom door creak open, then looks up to see Naoto in the doorway with her bookbag at her side. "Kanji-kun."

"S'up?" he manages, shifting in his seat as she walks over.

Naoto glances down at his legs, poking out from under the other side of the desk. Never make the damn things in his size. Naoto's feet barely touch the floor when she's sitting at hers.

Her head turns towards the window. "We will be entering the television tomorrow. You should return home and rest."

"Yeah. No worries."

She nods, then sets her bookbag on the floor by her feet. "Why are you still here?" she asks.

_Sewing club_, he almost says. "N-nothing. No reason. Just thinking."

Naoto looks at him then. Only for a couple of seconds, except it feels like forever because she doesn't say anything.

"Why did you… " She shakes her head. "You behaved irresponsibly. Conduct yourself with more care."

Kanji's learned to listen, because even if she knows a ton of them, what matter with Naoto aren't the words she uses. "S'fine," he tells her. "Yukiko-senpai healed it up, it don't hurt now."

Naoto opens her mouth slightly, like she's going to say something, then closes it again.

Kanji waits.

When she finally wrenches out some words to match the motion, her voice is uneven and low. "I… apologize, Kanji-kun. I miscalculated."

He leans forward, fists resting on the desk. "Hey… we made it back, yeah? Teddie and Senpai, too."

"Barely."

"But we _did_. And, and we'll do it again, right?"

"His world… he's powerful, Kanji." Naoto's staring out the window again. "More than Namatame. Far more than us. I don't know… there's a chance we will--"

The sentence stops dead. She tugs off her cap, runs a hand through her hair, puts the cap back on. Tips her head down, slightly, staring at a point halfway between the floor and the surface of the desk.

Kanji watches - but what he wants to do is push back the chair, stand up, and just give her a damn hug.

What he wants to ask is,_ are you as scared as I am._

Both ideas are stupid. It's Naoto. Cool, collected, controlled, a list of adjectives Kanji'll never apply to himself.

Except it all tumbles down sometimes, or it did once. Kanji's always hated hospitals; nobody's ever there for a happy reason and the unhappy ones strip away too much. Then you end up coming down hard on someone when they're choking up for once in their damn life, because they're supposed to always have it together and you don't know how to--

"You can't… you _must_ refrain from rash decisions." Naoto lifts her head. "I can't afford them."

If it's a slip, she doesn't notice. Kanji does, and he stores it away with the rest.

He swallows. "Yeah. Sorry. Wasn't thinking." Then he pulls back his chair and stands up. "So… t-tomorrow, right?"

She nods. "Souji and I have a new strategy. A reserve team, closely following the main."

Kanji's observant, but he isn't smart. He knows that. So he leaves the planning to Souji and Naoto, and tries to pretend that the 'and' doesn't set his teeth on edge.

"Sounds good," he says.

"'Good' does not mean 'good enough'. Adachi.... he isn't going to walk away at the end, Kanji." Naoto lets out a long breath; there's a shake in it that turns his stomach. They were at eye level while he was sitting, but now he can't see a thing under that damn cap. Kanji knows what he _should_ do here, if this was anyone else except her and if he could just grow a damn spine. But it is and he hasn't, so his left hand edges from his side to his waist to her shoulder before clamping down harder than he means.

Naoto glances up at him, eyes still barely visible under her cap, then away. Her muscles stiffen beneath his fingers.

"It's okay, y'know?" he says.

When she doesn't answer, Kanji lifts his right hand and tips up her cap. The hand slides down to her other shoulder and she looks up again. He swears her cheeks are pinker than usual.

"Of course." Naoto holds his gaze and it feels like forever again. Then she places her hands over his.

It's not a hug. It's something stilted and halfway, like everything between them. Kanji's doesn't know if there's a _between_ at all, if his mental collection of moments and glances adds up to anything more than that.

"We're gonna be fine," he tells her. He'd like to think it's true, but the ache in his chest makes him wonder.


	2. Thermodynamics: Yukiko

_A/N: Yukiko, genfic. Her relationship with light and fire.  
_

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_**Thermodynamics**

She might be oblivious sometimes, but she isn't _stupid_. 'The Amagi Challenge' isn't the only nickname she has at Yasogami High, just the politest.

The others - usually started by boys she's ignored or Chie's chased away - are less flattering. Yukiko's never cared for the 'Challenge' title ("Makes me sound like a mountain," she tells Chie) but better that than 'frigid bitch'.

'Ice queen' isn't much better. It also isn't remotely true - but she doesn't expect anyone to understand that.

**

* * *

**

"I wish I was more like you," Chie says, while Yukiko's being fitted for a new kimono.

The translation is clear: _I wish I were more graceful, more refined, more feminine._ A long list of qualities that Yukiko honestly can't stand, that make her skin itch and burn. In sixteen years of good breeding and high expectations, she's experienced nothing but a sense of compression - of being squashed and molded and made to fit in a space she shouldn't. Doesn't.

Yukiko looks at Chie, a clumsy, wonderful bundle of wild gestures, and thinks, _be careful what you wish for_. But she still smiles - because even with Chie, even now, that's what she does.

That night, as always, she goes upstairs and climbs into bed and dreams of the inn: glowing ashes raining from the roof, flames leaping up the walls.

**

* * *

**

"Jeez, I don't know how you can stand this heat!"

Chie lies on her back on the grass, aggressively waving one of Yukiko's ornate fans at her face. The movement's abrupt and fragmented, because nothing Chie does flows smoothly; too much stop and start energy, like the jerk of a puppet's strings.

Perhaps it's the kung-fu movies, Yukiko thinks.

"You never even sweat." Chie pouts, then pokes her in the side. "Not fair."

There's a lot of things that aren't fair, really.

"I have to go back to the inn soon," she tells Chie. "You can keep the fan."

**

* * *

**

She has the sense of being caged, bars pressing down against her back, and in her dreams the inn still burns. She has this stupid, childish idea about leaving Inaba and getting a job far away; spends far too long researching it, fills out endless sheets of paper.

"Have you thought about marriage?" her mother asks one day.

"Of course," Yukiko says.

Later that evening, she throws the papers into the furnace at the back of the inn and watches them curl and turn black under the flames.

**

* * *

**

It's Chie's fault.

Chie's the strong one, everyone thinks so. Which means Yukiko's the graceful, beautiful (helpless) princess trapped in the castle tower, waiting and waiting, _someday my prince will come_.

Then he does - except there are three of them and the princess doesn't exactly want to be rescued.

**

* * *

**

That night, feverish and alive, Yukiko welcomes the sensation of warmth around her, imagines red wings beating at the cage and melting the bars.

There's so much she can't show, even with Chie and Yosuke and Souji. Some things never change and Yukiko was raised to be beautiful - not to move and touch and grab hold of the world. She'll never know the person she thinks she might be underneath, if things had been just a little different.

But that's fine. Konohana Sakuya trills wordlessly at the back of her mind, and Yukiko thinks, _you'll give voice to it_.

**

* * *

**

Konohana Sakuya, Yukiko finds out, probably could burn down the inn if she asked nicely. Good thing she changed her mind, she thinks, and laughs until Chie pokes an elbow into her ribs.

(Turns out Chie's the ice queen. In a strange way, it makes sense.)

But there's fire of a different sort, too: a warm glow, starting behind the eyes and bound up into the flow of the blood through the veins. Yukiko holds out her hand, feels heat spiral up her spine and through her fingertips; watches the bloody gash on Souji's head knit and mend in seconds.

"How does it feel when you do it?" she asks Yosuke later, because he can heal too, she's seen him.

He pauses, tips his head. "I guess...like I'm on the edge of a cliff, about to jump and fly. You?"

"Oh, basically the same," she tells him.

**

* * *

**

"Kinda weird, isn't it?" Chie says. "Fire and life together."

_They're the same thing,_ Yukiko thinks, and smiles.


	3. Lions: Naoto

_A/N: Naoto genfic, angst. A funeral, ten years before Inaba.  
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_**Lions**

She's five years old. It's November, but the bitter air outside feels more like January. The temple is full, a sea of black filled with faces she doesn't recognize. Occasionally someone bends down, ruffles her hair, gives her a forced smile - but mostly it's just bodies and legs walking past her, murmurs of inaudible conversation above her head.

It was Yakushiji-san who told her. He sat her in the brown chair in her grandfather's study, the one by the bookshelves and the tall iron window. If she stands on it, she can almost reach the books on the sixth shelf. _There was an accident_, he said. She doesn't remember the rest; it was raining and she was busy watching the raindrops trickling down the glass.

Letters from across the country, postcards of new towns and cities, faces in photographs. Her parents can't be dead, she decides, because they've left her so many clues. Her father even sent a parcel full of tools - a badge, a pen with a camera, a magnifying glass, like real detectives use. They're not dead; they're just waiting for her to find them.

Yakushiji-san holds her hand in his, warm and rough, but Naoto's attention is on her grandfather. He stands in front of the two caskets, lifts a pinch of incense to his forehead, and places it on the brazier. His face doesn't change.

One of the postcards on her wall is from London; a bronze statue of a lion sitting beneath a big column. Her father picked it. She looks up at her grandfather and he's like the picture: a lion carved in grey stone.

He moves away from the brazier and sits down at her side. She tugs on his sleeve, but he's busy watching the people in black filing past the caskets. Yakushiji-san squeezes her left hand and with the other she reaches inside the pocket of her school blazer, pulling out a folded photograph. Her mother smiles cheerfully at her, a white crease across her chin. Her father's smile isn't half as bright or wide - it never is - but she can still see it. She folds the picture again, puts it back in her pocket; waits five minutes, watching the people in black; pulls it out and unfolds it. They're still smiling. She'll carry the photograph around for ten years more, repeating the same motion less and less frequently. One day she'll realize the faces looking back at her are strangers. But she's five years old, and the smooth texture of the paper between her fingers is a comfort.

She folds the picture; puts it back in her pocket; looks up at her grandfather. He doesn't cry. She doesn't either.


	4. Impulse: Chie & Kanji

_A/N: Chie + Kanji, friendship fic. The two team bruisers have too much time on their hands. A little angst, a little fluff. Spoilers for December.  
_

* * *

**Impulse**

Souji's the best leader they could ever hope for. But sometimes - sometimes - Chie just doesn't understand him.

It's the middle of December. They know Adachi's inside the television. They know they don't have long left, that the fog's thickening in town and the end of the year's rushing up towards them - but every time Chie asks Souji, _hey, are we gonna go in there and kick some ass_, he shakes his head. Says they need to prepare, or that he needs to visit Nanako (which Chie gets completely), or that he needs to plan strategies with Naoto (which she doesn't).

They've been inside a few times, gone back to the old areas of the T.V. world - the bathhouse one time, Kubo's dungeon another, the secret lab three days ago - but it's all too easy. Chie knows the shadows in those places almost as well as Rise, and they usually just cower in the corners of the corridors as the team passes through.

Fine, she's impatient. Who wouldn't be?

The fog's keeping people at home and the empty floodplain's the idea place for training. Chie launches another high kick, lands in a crouch, slides into a leg sweep. It's pretty smooth but the follow-through needs some work, so she repeats the same motions, imagining she's in one of her movies, taking down dozens of bad guys. Practice makes perfect.

Shame she can't _use_ the moves for anything.

*****

They make one more trip into the television, two days later. Souji benches her.

He explains he needs to take Yosuke and Naoto, whose Personas are both lagging behind in power and skill, and the third spot goes to Yukiko. The whole team needs to be capable, can't have the strong carrying the weak, yadda yadda.

Chie's _pissed._

And she isn't the only one. Teddie doesn't care about being left behind - he'll do anything for his sensei - but Kanji's stalking around the lot and kicking the heels of his boots against the floor.

The third time he stomps past her, Chie asks him if he's as bored as she is.

Kanji grunts, then scowls. "Gonna start breaking stuff if I hafta wait around any longer."

"No kidding."

Silence falls, broken only when Kanji starts pacing in circles again.

Loyalty's important, and Chie'll follow Souji to the grave. But everyone needs to cut loose sometimes. "Kanji-kun... you know this is stupid, right?" She waves a hand round the lot. "We're _stuck_ here and Adachi's running around and--"

"Yeah. I know." Kanji stops moving and cracks his knuckles. "I'm gonna pound the bastard into dust if we ever meet him."

"_If_," mutters Chie - and Kanji winces.

"Senpai's..." He trails off, brow furrowed. "He's a smart guy. Way smarter than me. But I dunno what he's planning."

Chie shrugs. "Guess him and Naoto-kun are figuring it out together."

Tact's never been her strong point - and she only realizes what she's said when Kanji grimaces. "Yeah. Right."

"C'mon, Kanji-kun. It isn't like that."

What Chie doesn't add is that, even though Naoto might not be a part of it, Souji's spending a lot of time with Yukiko too, and Rise. The big team secret that everyone's too polite to mention. It's not that he's a bad guy, not really; he just doesn't know when to say no, doesn't know how to let people down gently. In another life, maybe she would've fallen for the same trap.

She grabs Kanji's arm. "They're both smart, Kanji-kun. That's all. Smarter than us," she adds with a sigh.

"And we're the bruisers."

Chie grins. "_Impatient_ bruisers. But that's what makes us so good."

"Yeah." Kanji sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Senpai better appreciate us."

She's been thinking the same thing, lately. Suzuka Gongen's only really good for smashing stuff. Nothing flashy except for God Hand, and Souji's seen that dozens of times before.

Maybe he needs a reminder. Maybe they just need to prove themselves.

"Guess we'll have to show him, right?" Chie says.

Kanji raises an eyebrow. "Uh... show him how? We're stuck out here."

"No excuse not to train, Kanji-kun." She drops back into her fighting stance, one knee raised. "Put 'em up!"

"Wait a sec!" His eyes widen. "You seriously wanna spar?"

"Yep. Get ready to go home crying, Tatsumi!"

Kanji looks confused for a moment - then his face breaks into a smile. "Fine," he says, raising his fists but still grinning. "I'll go easy on ya."


	5. Soccer Practice: Rise x Kanji x Naoto

_A/N: Rise/Kanji/Naoto, cracky fluff. Yep, underclassmen OT3. Rated T for some heavy innuendo (nothing explicit!) and Kanji's bad language, no spoilers.  
_

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_

**Soccer Practice**

Kanji's the one to propose it. Not their current arrangement; that came from both Naoto (who's always been one for fairness and efficiency) and Rise (who vetoed Naoto's original plan for rotating weekly schedules in favor of something far simpler.)

Kanji's cool with that part. Who wouldn't be? What he isn't cool with is asshole, loudmouth third-years giving Rise shit at school and making her cry. It's this situation that his proposition relates to, and it basically boils down to three words: "Kick Their Asses". Pretty intuitive, he thinks. Naoto, of course, goes and complicates it - "Discuss Matters First, Then Kick Their Asses" - and Rise wants to alter it further - "Forget About This Crap And Go Make Out."

There is, admittedly, some debate about the merit of the last one. Kanji has to work hard to stay angry, particularly when Rise demonstrates her proposition on Naoto. Naoto herself probably has to work even harder.

She does a good job, though. Insists loudly that her plan has to be enacted. Defending Rise's honour and all that. Rise points out honour's not really a pressing issue when you've got your legs wrapped round someone's waist, but the vote, in this case, goes to the Coalition of Kicking Asses (and Possibly Discussing First)

Rise isn't impressed. "You're both crazy. Like I care about rumors!"

But she cares enough to cry, even if neither Kanji nor Naoto ever point this out.

"That's why she needs two princes," Kanji says, as Naoto and him walk round the back of school and down to the soccer pitch. Naoto's done her groundwork; two of the assholes bothering Rise are on the senior team. They'll question them first. Or Naoto will. Kanji's looking forward to standing menacingly behind her, cracking his knuckles and scowling, that kind of stuff.

Unfortunately they quickly discover two facts:

1. Naoto isn't very good at questioning people in a non-threatening manner, at least not when they've been making Rise cry.

2. Soccer team loyalty is a powerful thing.

"How many players should these guys have?" Kanji asks, throwing the first two into the goalposts. Naoto, kicking the third in the shins, is a little too busy to answer.

Fifteen minutes later, there's a trail of bruised and whining soccer players from the pitch down the locker room. Kanji forgot to count them, so he still doesn't know how many assholes make up one soccer team. But the important part is that two of the morons picking on Rise are down - and they'll probably go running (or limping) to the rest.

"I think this went very well," Naoto muses while stuffing strips of increasingly bloody tissue up her nose. Trying not to move too suddenly - he swears someone stamped on his back at some point, and he might've broken his hand on one guy's face - Kanji nods and kisses her on the head.

Rise still isn't impressed. Particularly when Yasogami High gets knocked out the inter-school soccer tournament by default because their entire senior team fails to show. "You guys are idiots," she tells them, while they're sprawled out on the bed in Naoto's apartment with icepacks and consolatory animal crackers. She's pissed for a week, and takes it out on them in various creative ways. By Thursday, Kanji's pretty certain that if he maybe couldn't walk before, he definitely can't now, and Naoto's practically begging Rise to stop doing that with her hands, the bruises still hurt, and why can't she just entertain herself for once?

So yeah, Rise's pissed. But she isn't crying. And no-one's given her shit at school since.

The coalition considers this a victory - and when Rise goes out the room for more ice, Naoto and Kanji give each other a very painful, congratulatory not-so-high-five.


	6. Countdown: Adachi & Nanako & Souji

_A/N: An older one. Adachi, Nanako and Souji. Written for a prompt requesting character interaction with no dialogue. Spoilers for December. Harsh language.  
_

* * *

**Countdown**

By this stage, words are both pointless and endless.

Adachi watches the steady rise and fall of Nanako's chest, listens to the machines around her hiss and beep. It's ten minutes to midnight, Namatame's babbling nonsense down the hall and they're alone in the room.

Back from the dead, according to the doctors. A miracle. Adachi's seen stranger things.

_(He remembers sitting on the floor at their house; Dojima-san sprawled drunk on the sofa, the television blaring late night nonsense and one tiny fist clutching sleepily at his shirt.)_

It's December 4th - twenty-one days till the end of the year - and time isn't on anyone's side. Not Nanako's, not Seta's, not Inaba's - and least of all his.

They all deserve it, him included. Just maybe not her.

_(He remembers being stooped over and holding Nanako's hand as they wandered quietly around Junes, stopping only to look at bright displays of soda cans, fruits, toy cars.)_

For a single, achingly brief moment, Adachi regrets it all; everything he's said and done and witnessed since April, from Yamano's stifled scream to the sound of tires screeching against a rain-slicked road.

The thought soon fades. She'll grow up to be just like the rest of them.

_(He remembers being used as a glorified babysitter on more than one occasion - "assisting a superior officer with external business" - but it never mattered, not when Nanako's face lit up and she hugged him round the legs every time.)_

A shadow moves across the thin shaft of light. When Adachi glances up, Seta's standing in the doorway.

Seta doesn't talk much, but on this occasion he opens his mouth to speak. Adachi cuts him off with a nod towards Nanako, then smiles and raises a finger to his lips.

It works. Seta raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

_(He remembers Seta sitting with her watching that stupid bullshit gameshow; she was tucked neatly in his lap, she giggled when 'Big Bro' tugged gently at her pigtails, and Adachi could hardly hear Dojima speak.)_

Instead he moves to the other side of the bed, opposite Adachi. He lays his hand gently next to Nanako's - and her fingers curl loosely round his thumb.

It isn't possible. She's out cold.

Seta smiles and Adachi's hand snaps around the metal bar of the bed.

_(He remembers seeing her with Seta at the food court; he'd gone to buy one of those dumb magic sets to show her. Two of Seta's friends were arguing - the Junes kid and the tough bitch - but he just smiled at her and ruffled her hair.)_

Then he lifts his head and looks Adachi in the eye.

Adachi's still a detective. A pretty shoddy one - he doesn't care now and he never truly did - but some things are obvious. The clench of Seta's jaw, the stony set of his eyes, the way the fingers of his free hand stiffen against the blankets.

_You got it in the end,_ Adachi wants to say. _It just took you too long._

But words are pointless. Instead he smirks, pries his hand away from the bar. He looks at Nanako, still breathing steady and slow--

_(and he remembers seeing her in the static, already knowing Seta would be the one to save her)_

--then turns and walks out to the corridor, making certain not to look back. Twenty-one days.


	7. Penguins on Safari: Kanji x Naoto

_A/N: Kanji/Naoto. Kanji explains life via the medium of animal crackers. Fluffy post-game fic._

* * *

**Penguins on Safari**

The case was over and Souji had left town a month ago, so it wasn't like Kanji _had _to go sit in the food court for hours anymore. Just force of habit - that, and Junes did killer sales on bulk boxes of animal crackers. He'd come back to the court today thinking that the rain would drive away the crowds, keep things nice and quiet. He hadn't expected to find one seriously unhappy Naoto Shirogane sitting at the picnic table and staring into space.

"Uh...Naoto?"

Naoto - head resting on her folded arms - didn't look at him.

Kanji figured he should find out what was up. He was the only one there, after all, and teammates helped each other out. Had nothing to do with a crush he might or might not have on a certain detective. (Though by this stage, he'd pretty much accepted there was no "might" about it.)

"Whassup?" he asked, summoning all the courage he had and sitting down on the opposite side of the picnic bench. "You okay?"

Naoto just looked tired - and kinda...Kanji wasn't sure. Small? Didn't fit Naoto at all. Which worried him even more.

"I am fine, Kanji," she murmured.

"You...you don't look it."

"Just a few issues at work." She frowned, shoulders slumping a little. "I never wish to go back to the police station."

"Why? Don't y'have to?"

"...Yes. So I am childish to think otherwise." Naoto sighed. "But there's no purpose when nobody there takes me seriously." Her voice shook, just slightly. "I want to be a great detective, Kanji, but everything goes against me. _Everything_."

Naoto, as far as Kanji was concerned, was pretty much ideal in everything already. Then he remembered her Shadow's secret base. "You mean 'cause you're not a guy?"

She nodded, looking even more unhappy. "And I never will be."

_Oh, man_. Kanji was proud of himself for figuring it out...but still, it wasn't right for her to think that way. He knew how it felt though, kind of. Maybe he could help.

_Yeah! You can totally do this, Tatsumi._ Kanji had a new mission for the day: make Naoto Shirogane less down on herself.

And the Junes shopping bag of animal crackers at his side gave him an awesome idea. Kanji reached inside his jacket, pulled out a half-finished box, and set it on the table. "S'all about animal crackers."

Naoto raised an eyebrow. "Um...what do you..."

"Life is a like...a zoo. Uh...no, wait, a safari park." Zoos meant animals were in cages, right? Totally not what he was going for.

"A what?"

"A safari park," Kanji said again, thumping the bench with his fist for emphasis - and accidentally knocking over his box of crackers. Lions and tigers and elephants poured out onto the table.

Damn. Hadn't meant to do that. But that was cool, maybe it represented the jumble of life or something. Naoto was giving him _that_ look, so he figured he'd better come up with something good. "I mean...uh...you see these guys, right?" He pointed at the crackers. "There's all kinds of animals in here, and they all do their own thing. At the park. The lion ain't trying to be a bear and the gorilla isn't pissed 'cause he ain't a kangaroo."

"I am not trying to be a kangaroo." Naoto was frowning - almost glaring - at the crackers.

_Detectives_, Kanji thought. Always took everything so damn literally. "I-I know that! Never said you were. But you're fussing 'bout being something you think you should be. Like the gorilla."

"I'm not a gorilla either," Naoto said glumly. "I do not understand where this is going."

By this stage Kanji was quickly losing his courage - partly because Naoto didn't look any happier since he started on this thing, and mostly because he'd just realized this was the longest conversation they'd ever had. He figured he'd start freaking out soon, or get a nosebleed or something just as--

"Penguin," he blurted out.

Naoto didn't blink. "Congratulations."

_What?_ "Uh..."

"I hear they're difficult to find," she muttered, then waved a hand at the pile of crackers. "Must be a lucky box."

"Oh...uh, no, no...didn't find one." Kanji leaned forward over the table and looked Naoto in the eye - or tried to. "I mean you. You're a penguin, yeah?"

Naoto stared at him.

But that was fine, all good, she'd see what he was getting at. It all made sense. "Seriously! You're a penguin. They're really hard to find and they don't fit that well with the other animals, but it's cool, because they just do their thing. Being penguins." He paused. "And, uh...they're not in that many boxes, so...uh....that, that makes them special." It took every bit of willpower he had to try and keep from blushing and he still wasn't sure he'd succeeded.

Might've been his imagination, but Naoto looked a little red too. "Um...special?"

"Y-yeah. Penguins are special."

Dammit, Tatsumi. He hadn't expected that part at all. Running his mouth off again. And Naoto had just become really interested in the table all of a sudden, judging by the way she was staring at it.

A very awkward silence fell.

Just as Kanji was starting to panic, Naoto broke it. "Penguins," she quietly pointed out, "aren't typically found on safari."

Crap. Good point.

Kanji had this, though. His analogy was bulletproof. Chie could Galactic Punt it to the moon and it'd stay rock solid. "Don't matter. You know why? Because he's the damn penguin and he'll go chill out on safari if he wants to, because he's just that awesome!"

"...Doesn't that mean he's pretending to be a lion or a tiger?"

"No way! He's just bein' himself, and it doesn't get him down." Kanji nodded. "I learned how important that is from Souji. You gotta learn it too, Naoto, or you're just gonna beat yourself up all the time." He grinned. "I don't always have to be a tough guy, and you don't gotta be some ideal detective you made up."

"I-I didn't make it up. They're in the books."

Books weren't everything. Kanji was pretty certain they were nothing at all, save a few exceptions, but Naoto probably wouldn't appreciate that. "Keep 'em there. You...you're not living in a detective novel, y'know?"

Naoto paused - then did something Kanji didn't expect and didn't even recognize at first. She _smiled_.

"I suppose you're right, Kanji." Then Naoto shrugged, and when the smile faded Kanji almost begged her to bring it back. "I ought to accept myself, as I promised I would. It just isn't easy. The officers at the station remind me every day of what I am and it leads them to disregard my theories."

"So...uh, keep trying. Just keep doing your thing. In the end, they'll see it." They had to. Naoto was _awesome_. If some stupid cops couldn't see it, maybe Kanji needed to go smack some sense into them.

"Perhaps," Naoto said, and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

Yeah. He'd done a good job. Animal crackers were totally the solution to _everything_.

Thinking he was on a roll, he nodded and kept going. "Plus, you look like a penguin too."

Naoto bristled - and so impressively, she looked five inches taller. "What."

_Uh-oh.  
_  
"W-well...uh...p-penguins are short and they look smart cause it's always like they're wearing tuxes and, and I didn't mean nothin' bad by it Naoto, seriously!"

She stood up, drawing herself up to her full, not very impressive height. The glare she summoned could freeze lava. "Tatsumi."

_Think fast! _"Ah! Just remembered, Ma wanted my help at the store. Gotta go!" With that, Kanji leapt up and bolted out the food court - congratulating himself at every step of his retreat. Sure, it hadn't worked out 100%... but at least Naoto wasn't moping anymore.

Probably because she was mad at him instead, Kanji reflected, and decided that some analogies just shouldn't be stretched.


	8. The Junes Heir: Yosuke & Teddie

_A/N: Yosuke + Teddie friendship. The upperclassmen are graduating; Yosuke's feeling left behind. Mild spoilers for end of game._

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* * *

_**The Junes Heir**

The lame part is that everyone else is raring to go. Ready for the rest of their lives to begin, or whatever the principal was spouting at the graduation ceremony. Yosuke only started listening when Souji yanked his earphones off and threatened to throttle him with them if he didn't pay attention to this Very Important Day.

Important for Souji, maybe. He's always been the bigshot - Yosuke means that in a good way, he swears - so he's heading off to Tokyo University. Chie's already training at the police station, kicking ass and taking names and refusing to make coffee for anyone. The inn's keeping Yukiko busy, same as always, and she seems a lot happier about it than she used to be. She's laughing more, at least.

Even the kōhai have everything set out and they aren't graduating for another whole year. Rise's half-way back in the business and planning a full return once school's over; one that'll probably work out well, despite every song she's written sounding like a chimpanzee composed it on a rusted set of spoons. Kanji's got the store and his sewing classes, and Naoto even helped him set up a website to sell his dumb dolls. And then there's Naoto herself, who's already famous for what she does and probably started detecting stuff or whatever before she finished teething.

And they _all_ talk about it. Rave about this new investigation protocol Dojima-san taught them at the station, or how they've got their dorm room picked out, or how much better the inn's been doing since Inaba kicked its serial killer problem. Or worse, how they've sewed twenty-five giraffes and elephants just in the last week, they're seriously on a major roll here - _hey, senpai, y'want one of Susano-O?_

Yosuke, who's probably going to work at Junes until he's ninety, can only take so much of everyone being ecstatic about their career choices. Honestly, he's _tried_ to be enthusiastic about stacking shelves and serving fries to tired women with screaming kids.

Well, okay, he hasn't. But it's not like he could be, so why bother? He's stuck in the food court right now, sat at one of the benches, wasting the last few minutes before his shift starts.

"Yosuke? I'm bear-y bored."

Staring at the table surface helps Yosuke feel even more sorry for himself, so he doesn't bother to look up. "Very, Ted. _Very_."

"Yes, bear-y," says Teddie, then sits down on the bench beside him.

"Ted," he says, glancing sideways as Teddie fidgets with his ruffled shirt, "what do you want to do with your life? And dude, if you say score, you're working triple time for the rest of the week."

There's less of a pause than he expects. "…Well...if I can't say _that_, then I wanna stay at Junes."

It takes every tiny scrap of self-control Yosuke has not to smack Teddie in the head and shove him back in the television, just for his own good.

He sighs, leaning forward on his elbows. "Go on. Tell me why."

"I like the music from the ceiling. And the free food. And the deckchairs in the gardening department. Oh, and I like _you_, Yosuke!" Teddie flops onto his side, both arms snaring round Yosuke's waist. "Also, I might get to score with Chie-chan and Yuki-chan while they're shopping."

Someone really needs to explain that word to Teddie. Maybe Souji can do it. Better yet, Naoto.

Yosuke grunts. "Glad you like it here, Teddie. Because I'm not going anywhere and that means you're stuck here too." It comes out harsher than he wants.

Teddie bolts upright - but his eyes light up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Everyone else is going." Teddie tugs at the hem of his shirt again, picking at a loose thread (_do you know how much that cost_, Yosuke almost snaps) before he continues. "Sensei's left. Nao-chan and Rise-chan are going soon. Yuki-chan and Chie-chan already told me how busy they were when I asked them out on a date."

"Both at once?" Yosuke asks, just for the sake of it.

"Of course!" He leans closer. "Just in case you were gonna ask too, Yuki-chan's washing her hair for the next six months. Must be why it looks so good."

Yukiko isn't really his type, so it's more an excuse for self-pity - but hey, why pass it up? "Like she'd date a loser anyway. The heir to the Amagi inn and the shelf-stacker from Junes."

"You're the heir to Junes!" Teddie chirps, then slumps slightly. "And if you left, Teddie'd have to go back inside the television."

"C'mon, Teddie. You've got tons of friends here." Yosuke glances down, watching him scratch his claws - wait, fingernails - against the table. "This side is better, right?"

"I like the other side too. Especially now it's green. But there's nobody there. No Yosuke, no Nana-chan, no Sensei - and no girls." Teddie shudders. "Terrible."

"Well…I'm not going anywhere yet. Flunked out too hard to get into university." Yosuke rubs the back of his neck, hoping he sounds casual. "And it's not like I couldn't take you with me. If I felt like it."

"Yosuke! You deserve a bear-hug!" Arms already reaching forward, Teddie stops short. "Oh, but not in front of people, right?"

That particular lesson took a long time to drill into Teddie's mind. Also a lot of painful, high-speed bear-tackles from the other side of the food court. What with landing in trash cans, cross-dressing as a schoolgirl and running his bike into walls, the last thing Yosuke needs is more help embarrassing himself. "Smart bear."

Teddie's got his head pressed sideways against the table, so the grin he gives Yosuke looks a little weird. "Yosuke…you've always got Teddie." He frowns. "And I think Sensei will visit. He promised."

"Yeah." Yosuke folds his arms, lets out a breath. "He better, too." Souji's the first real friend he made, and one of only two people he knows that gets how it feels to be a transfer student.

…But the others count too. Not like they'll dump him completely, right?

Teddie hums. "Chie-chan's staying, you know. And Rise-chan said… what was it… that you totally want to--"

"_Shut up_, Ted," said Yosuke, and kicked him under the table.


	9. The Kanji Tatsumi Cooking Hour: Ensemble

_A/N: Slightly cracky friendship fic. Kanji teaches Chie, Rise and Yukiko how to cook - with a little help from the Hand-Puppet Investigation Team. T-rated for mild language from Kanji. Do not pace my updates well, I know; apologies to those who got alerts for other stories too.  
_

_

* * *

_

**The Kanji Tatsumi Cooking Hour**

"Chie-chan, do pudding cups and chocolate bars go in omelettes?" Yukiko asked, entire body tilted at a forty-five degree angle to the floor.

"Why, Yuki-chan, of course! What an awesome idea!" squeaked Chie, bobbing along and waving both arms backwards. "I bet that will taste just great!"

"Ooh, senpai, let's put half a damn jar of chili powder in there too!" Rise added, clutching a spice sprinkler as tall as herself and hopping along the kitchen counter.

The scene was supposed to continue - moving onto Puppet-Chie's penchant for incinerating meat, presumably just to make sure it was dead, and ending with Puppet-Naoto's lengthy explanation of why strawberry cakes weren't supposed to contain oysters. Unfortunately, Chie smacked Kanji's hand so hard that Puppet-Rise flew clear across the room and into the sink.

Rise shrieked something about her poor puppet having done nothing to anyone, while Kanji rescued it from a pot of water (clean, luckily) and muttered about _some people's_ lack of appreciation for the sewing arts. Weaving together the precise explosion of pigtails required for Puppet-Rise had taken him two straight nights.

"I never said chocolate would go great in omelettes!" Chie snapped, one hand balled into a fist and the other pointing at Kanji. "That was the curry!"

Kanji lifted his hand - and Puppet-Yukiko gave Chie a disapproving glare. Real Yukiko, arms folded, shot her one that could freeze the sun. "You told me to put caviar in that too. _You_ told me you knew all about cooking."

"Oh, c'mon. We've known each other for years, Yukiko, like you believed me!" Chie paused, eyebrows raised. "...Wait, you did?"

Puppet-Naoto leapt onto the table, arms flailing, hat at an unusually jaunty angle. "Cease your babbling! It is time to cook!"

Rise had calmed down and was now investigating the contents of Kanji's Junes shopping bag. "Kanji, c'mon. That's Naoto's Shadow. Naoto doesn't flap around like that unless I'm trying to hug her."

Kanji had made a Puppet-Shadow-Naoto too, of course, complete with a set of carefully-crafted miniature felt scalpels. Problem was, it looked kind of creepy and he'd figured Puppet-Regular-Naoto would get all sad sitting next to it on the shelf, so he'd put it back in the sewing box (and definitely didn't take it out and give it a big hug each night).

He dropped Puppet-Naoto to his side. "Shut it, all of you! This is class, dammit!"

"And it's probably gonna go on for hours," Rise said, midway through unpacking the bag. "I swear, Kanji-kun, you bought up the grocery department."

"Nah, only bought extra ingredients. Just in case." _Just in case_ was a polite way of saying _in case you idiots screw up so badly we have to throw the cake in the Samegawa and start again_. Kanji valued his life too much to tell the truth.

Chie frowned. "I still don't get it. Why are we making another cake? We did a great job at Christmas."

Dammit, they'd been over this twice already. Kanji grunted and reached under the kitchen counter.

Puppet-Souji bounced onto the counter, swaggering down to the bag. "Only when somebody helped, Chie, and you totally screwed it up the first time. Plus cakes are super easy, and not just for geniuses like me!"

"Souji's right," agreed Rise.

Chie gave her a peculiar look. Yukiko just nodded.

Kanji sighed. This was the second attempt at class; the first had been a disaster. Partly because Rise had kept giggling, partly because Chie had been in a fierce temper over Yosuke, partly because Yukiko had showed up in a silk blouse which you'd never, ever get cake mix out of - but mostly because they'd all totally ignored him.

Puppets, they listened to.

"Okay, girls!" Puppet-Souji chirped. "Make sure you pay attention, yeah? Because I swear I was dating all of you at once last year and none of you noticed! Which was kinda worrying!"

All three girls stared. Dead silence fell.

"Ah, just read the damn recipe," Kanji muttered, and shoved Puppet-Souji in the rice cooker.

**

* * *

**

Kanji had to admit the girls weren't doing badly. He'd hidden everything that any of them might decide would go just awesomely in a cake, the entire contents of the spice rack included, and they'd all been diligently checking the recipe at each step. Shame half the ingredients had wound up spread around the kitchen instead of in a mixing bowl.

"S'gonna take me hours to clean this up," he muttered, trying not to cringe at the thin coat of flour covering most of the kitchen.

"Oh, don't worry!" Yukiko said cheerfully. "You should have seen the inn kitchen after Chie and I tried to make yakisoba."

Kanji was grateful he hadn't. Mothers talked. Amagi-san hadn't mentioned to Ma exactly how the staff cleaned the mixture off the counters, ceiling and floor; only that it took six hours and a pressure hose and that the head cook hadn't let Yukiko through the door since.

"Still say there was something wrong with that oven. The burners, too." Scratch half the cake mix going on the floor; a good chunk of it was on Chie. "Nothing we've cooked there has come out right."

"Or at your house," Yukiko pointed out.

"Or in the Home Ec room," added Rise.

"Or in any oven in the world, ever," Puppet-Yosuke finished, hopping down the counter wielding a pipe-cleaner wrench.

Under the weight of a three-girl incendiary glare, Kanji shrunk back. "Th-that was Yosuke. Guy's an ass sometimes."

"Oh... yeah." Chie looked slightly confused - then shook her head. "No, wait a sec--"

"You know, maybe it isn't the oven," Yukiko said with a sigh, staring at the floor. "I just don't get it, Kanji-kun. Why are you so good at cooking? You're not even a girl."

Kanji tensed. Dammit. There was a reason he'd always claimed his mother did all the cooking. The taunts over his sewing were bad enough. "Wh-what's that s'posed to mean?"

"Well... girls are supposed to know how to do this, aren't they? Not boys? Is... isn't that what people say?" Yukiko shot a quick, nervous glance at Chie, who immediately stepped in.

"I dunno, Kanji. I mean… I hate to sound like Yosuke, but... you're a guy." Chie winced. "And this is _baking_."

"It's subversive baking," Kanji told her with a firm nod.

"What?"

"Subversive. I'm subverting the constraints placed on me by a heteronormative society and its... its..." He hesitated. Crap, what had Naoto said? "... its... cymbalist... and, and binary... contraptions of gender and sex." Yeah, that was about right. "'Sides, _you_ beat up trees in the park."

"I, I'm just in training!" Chie blurted out, sounding way less confident than before. "Sub... subversive training!"

"So's Kanji." Rise smirked. "He's gonna be a housewife."

Kanji, who figured that putting on an apron each day and cooking nice dinners was actually a pretty sweet way to spend life, stayed quiet.

Puppet-Naoto didn't. "He's going to make an awesome housewife! And detectives need to eat right! So shut up!"

Rise shook her head. "That doesn't sound like Naoto either."

"Like you'd know," Puppet-Souji chimed in, fingerless hands on imaginary hips. "Uh, but I don't either! Because there's no way Naoto ever liked me. At all."

Chie rolled her eyes. "Kanji-kun, you seriously need to get out the store more."

_Probably right_, Kanji thought, glaring fiercely at Puppet-Souji.

**

* * *

**

Puppet-Teddie helped pour the cake mix into the pan; Rise was the one wearing him, but she had the voice down way better than Kanji ever would. While the cake was baking, Puppet-Yosuke, controlled by Chie, jumped around making smart-assed comments and getting his head smacked against the counter - while Puppet-Naoto and Puppet-Rise, both uncharacteristically polite, asked if Puppet-Kanji might be in the works. ("We can't have one missing," Yukiko added, moments before Puppet-Yosuke's latest trauma drove her into a fit of giggles.)

The mix looked fine. The oven was set correctly. Nothing caught on fire. Not even a faint smell of burning, which Kanji had pretty much resigned himself to. And the cake itself? Admittedly, it looked like they'd thrown the icing from across the kitchen instead of using a spatula, but it was still pretty damn good for beginners.

"It kinda sunk in the middle," said Chie, poking the cake with a fork and making it sink even more.

"That's not bear-y upbeat, Chie-chan!" Puppet-Teddie pointed out, before jumping onto Yukiko's head. "Seriously, Chie-senpai, I think we did good."

"Rise, stop it! And... and Kanji-kun, thank you. Your class was very helpful." Yukiko smiled. "We should hold another one."

Chie paused. "Hey, isn't the head cook at the inn on vacation this week?"

Yukiko nodded. "And we still don't really know how to make curry. There are so many variations, I'm sure Kanji-kun could teach us!"

"Cakes are perfectly sufficient," Puppet-Naoto firmly informed them - while Kanji cringed back from the counter and wished people would just stick to what they were good at.


End file.
